Niente
by Swamy
Summary: She is all that's warm in his existence. [D/E, B/OC, B/T]


"I will die before hurting you," Damon promised her once.

They both knew it was a lie. His soul is too violent for that, his hunger too deep, but Bonnie smiled like she believed him. The mere sight of it a reason good enough to do his damndest to keep his promise.

#

"I won, you pay," she beams, turning to him in the dimly lit bar they picked in which to spend their Wednesday night, leaning with one hip against the pool table.

"I'm not entirely sure you're not cheating with your jumbo, Bon-Bon." It could be that or the fact that he, once or twice, got distracted by the sight of her shirt dipping into a 'V' right in the middle of her breast. In any case the points speak the unavoidable truth and it bothers him. He's the one with the enhanced senses, the powerful creature not even death could drag to hell.

But she always wins.

"And take advantage of poor, innocent, naïve you?" she asks, mocking him as the waitress approaches with their order and places the two bottles of beer on the edge of the table.

Damon takes his wallet from his backside pocket, holds a ten dollar bill between two fingers and hands it out. A square of hard paper falls down and he picks it up while Bonnie is busy rubbing the chalk over the topper of her stick, and the victory in his face.

Elena's face smiles up at him and he realizes with shame that he hasn't looked at her in months.

#

His heart accelerates, because of the smell of her shampoo, because of the weight on the left side of his chest, because of the numb arm he's got sleeping with her laying on it for half the night, because of stupid _happiness_. And then because it was not supposed to happen, because he screwed up in the worse way and because _Elena_. He was supposed to think of Elena. Elena first and Elena always.

Damon slips out of the bed ungraciously, hurriedly, waking her up in the process making it clear how much of an asshole he is. Good, that will leave no room for doubt, he thinks slipping one leg inside his jeans, then the other.

He can hear her shift in her bed, tiny enough that he had a good excuse for being pressed against her in their sleep. He peeks shortly to see her lift the sheet against her naked chest, trying to blink away sleep and confusion.

"Damon, what-"

"Thanks," he rushes to say, turning to her, still half-naked and completely unbalanced, "I felt really like shit last night. I'm sorry I made you miss your date," making their first and only time together seem like any other time in which she was there for him. And isn't it just like that? Her warmth always reaches where the sun cannot, in the marrow of his bones, at the very bottom of his rotten heart.

"Yeah," She says, her lips thinning into a line as she looks away and nods.

"I know you're the honest type but there's no need to tell David what happened." She looks at him then, with big eyes, because he never uses their names. When she has a date they become bland nicknames not worthy of a good insult on his part. There was Plaid Shirt and Orange Tan and Puppy-Eye and Bald Romeo. "You barely went out twice. Who you console in the night is not required information." It's like he's telling her to stay focused on someone she can actually keep, someone that will actually be interested in cuddling her in the morning and bring her breakfast. It's a slap in the face and she knows to grow cold. He can feel the shift in the air, see the wall appear so fast he's almost tempted to reach out and bring her back from wherever she's going. Instead he adds, "It meant nothing," for good measure.

Like there's actually a chance a girl like Bonnie could look back at someone like him with regret and longing. How strange that the girl he's rejecting is way out of his league while the one he's chased for years deserved him.

"Try not to let people see you leave this room at this hour," she tells him glancing at the clock on the nightstand, "I know it's late for that but I don't want people to think I've got low standards," she explains with a smile before crinkling her nose like she's smelling something sour. "God, I stink, I really need a shower."

And he's left watching her walk away from the bed followed by the sheet dragged after her petite figure like the train of a wedding dress. The water will wash him away like the dirt he is and maybe, maybe if he's really lucky, if she's really generous, tomorrow will be like nothing happened.

#

She never tells him how she did it, but she did it. He asks, he asks, and he asks again but though she denies him nothing she will never tell him this.

Bonnie is condescending in her kindness, aloof in her smiles. Her warmth never reaches him anymore. It's like living a perpetual winter. And he shouldn't care because Elena is back. Elena first and Elena always (and Bonnie in the corner of his mind, Bonnie in his twisted veins, Bonnie spread in his system so completely that the day they drain him of his blood it will smell of her shampoo).

She throws Elena's 'welcome back' party, and never avoids him, like he never hurt her, like he never could have in the first place, like he doesn't know the nightmares that wake her at night or her pick-me-up lipstick. He misses the time she hated him so much that he feels like killing anyone she ever loved, but that's hard to do because there's no one left for her anymore aside from his brother's girlfriend and his own.

She will not hate him, and she will not love him, and he's left standing on a wire in between the thing he needs and the one he wants.

After the party when all he's got is Elena asleep next to him and silence he watches _The Bodyguard_ with a muted screen and eats a disgusting light cereal bar Bonnie forgot in the drawer of his nightstand. Elena's cheek is covered in blue light during the "Queen of the Night" scene. Rachel is beautiful and surrounded by people that want a piece of her, and Frank is the one she won't let close. Considering it, now, maybe it would have been better for her to stick to that line of action 'til the end.

#

He's scared shitless.

Her phone is disabled and she's nowhere to be found. He calls Stefan, won't let him talk and demands that everyone come to the boardinghouse.

It occurs to him that she hasn't been kidnapped because her closets are empty and her house is rented out and she dropped out of college.

Caroline is calm and won't let him get to her when she informs him, "She needed to get away from all the madness, you know."

He wonders if that's code for his name while Elena clings to his arm like a leech.

"Where did she go?" he asks, hard, like this is personal, like this is something she did to him rather than for herself. If only it was like this he could still hope for something. Though what exactly he doesn't know.

"I told you, she said not to tell."

He's moving before he realizes it and Stefan is in front of him. He can see his hands going for his throat, can see his sight blur when his head hits the wall. He can't stop hitting even when he's hit back.

Elena is screaming and he is bleeding and it smells like Bonnie's shampoo.

#

He stays put, plays the good boyfriend, doesn't even say a word when he realizes Bonnie took away every trace of her left in his house. The pictures they took at a stupid karaoke contest he insisted they take part in. Her DVDs and a scarf she forgot one night when she stayed over to play chess.

Two books she borrowed from him are in their place on his shelf.

He finds himself cooking pancakes he won't eat.

One night, four months after she left without a word, he finds a message on his answering service.

"Hi Damon, it's Bonnie," she says her name like there is a single chance he won't recognize the sound of her voice, like it won't change the rhythm of his heart with every start and every stop. "Caroline called me. They're worried about you. It's awkward, because they really want the other shoe to drop and you to go crazy so they can stop fearing the worse. I don't know what can be worse. See where I'm going with this?" She pauses, her voice getting warmer. For a moment he can feel it dripping in the marrow of his bones, in the bottom of his rotten heart. "I'm sorry I can't be there for you. But talk to someone, Damon, okay?" she says, "I worry for you."

He talks to Elena, tells her it's over. He doesn't stay around to see her cry.

#

Caroline won't spill it and Stefan won't hold him back, that's basically how he ends up in his Camaro driving across the country, looking for signs of her.

The country is too large but it's not like he's short on time. And one day Stefan calls him, voice so grim he thinks someone died. He thinks Bonnie died, just so that he won't have a chance to see her anymore. To tell her the truth, that she won his every resistance, that she is all that warm in his existence, that not even death could drag him to hell but _she_ did when she left.

"She's getting married," he says. Which is stupid. He is in love with her.

#

Damon walks along the central nave with her, spying on her through the line of people standing in the side, so mesmerized he forgets for a moment. His heart accelerates and it's there all over again, the smell of her shampoo and the weight of her on the left side of his chest and the numbness in his arm because she's been laying on it all along.

He watches her walk to the altar followed by the train of her white dress, short on the front with a heart-shaped décolleté and a flower on the single strap.

She beams turning to the man next to her – Tyler Lockwood. How they ended up like this he doesn't have the faintest idea, but he knows that Tyler is the type that will fight with teeth to keep her love and Bonnie is loyal to a fault. Above all Bonnie is happy, and so beautiful it breaks his heart.

He was such an idiot. Like there was actually a chance a girl like Bonnie could look back at someone like him with regret and longing. How strange that the girl he's rejected is forever out of his reach while the one he's chased for years lost him.

He hears her say the words ( _I love you_ ) as he walks away, convinces himself that they are for him (they were once, if only he would have listened) so that it will feel like summer always, in the marrow of his bones, in the bottom of his rotten heart. When the kid playing the flower girl brings them the wedding rings pillow there will be his own ring, too, next to hers.

His token for her, something she can keep forever (wrapped around her pretty finger).

#

Tyler asks her what the ring means but she cannot possibly explain—it's about words never said, feelings never lived—she just smiles at him and says, "Nothing," and yet she understands it all.

Bonnie doesn't look for the dust on her path when she steps out in the sun. He'll always be with her and she will be happy.

"I will die before hurting you," Damon promised her once.

#

 **Note:** Sorry for the angst, that's what came to me and I wrote it down. The title of this story means _"Nothing",_ the fanfiction is been loosely ispired by a french song called _"Elle m'a aimé_ by Kendji Girac and by my need to take revenge on Damon every time I feel like Bonnie is being mistretated on the show, though I don't even watch it.


End file.
